Real Christianity #108： Did I Choose God or Did God Choose Me？
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Summary
In this episode of Real Christianity, Pastor Dale answers a question from Tyler in Laredo, Texas. He asks the question, "Did God choose me or did I choose Him?" and why it's important to have training in order to plant a biblical house church.
Transcript
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Welcome to this episode of Real Christianity. My name is Dale Partridge, where each week
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I offer 15 to 20-minute answers to tough theological and pastoral questions. This is
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a 100% listener-supported audio ministry of relearn.org. And for those who don't know,
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our mission at relearn.org is to educate and equip ordinary Christians to plant biblical,
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confessional, and missional house churches. For more information, just visit relearn.org
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forward slash house. Well, guys, many Christians, I've noticed, interpret their testimony like this.
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I was at a certain place and I heard the gospel. I accepted Jesus and now I'm a Christian.
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But is that what really happened? Did you choose God, or did He, before the foundations of the world, choose you?
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We're going to be unpacking this important discussion today on this episode, but before we begin, I just wanted to make two quick announcements.
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The first one is, you've heard me talk about it before, St. Justin's, that's stjustins.org.
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This is our online and in-person one-year seminary-grade training program for men to
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plant biblical house churches. And we've seen so many people over the years who have gone into
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ministry and planted a church or a house church, and without training, it can be incredibly
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catastrophic relationally. So we really suggest that people get trained. We would never let a
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doctor work on our bodies without training. We would never let an attorney work on our law case
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without training. It's interesting how much of the church will allow pastors to work on their
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hearts and souls without training. And we're not saying that you need to have a degree, but we
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think that pastors need training. And the reason is because Jesus, he didn't just send his disciples
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out on day one. No, he had three years of training before they were sent on mission. And so we have
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developed a program for those that are interested in planting a biblical house church. And if you're
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intimidated by that, but you feel called still, this is a great resource for you to check out.
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We've had so many situations that we've heard of and walked through even personally that
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you go, oh man, that could have been avoided had I been trained on how to handle that theologically,
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If you're interested or you know somebody that's interested in planting a biblical house
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church, just go to stjustins.org and just go ahead and fill out the information seeking.
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It's a little button that says seek more information.
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Guys, if you are a regular listener to this podcast or to our ministry in any capacity,
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maybe you read our articles or follow us on social media or whatever it may be, would
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you guys prayerfully consider making a donation maybe monthly to our ministry?
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We have seen a slight drop in donations because of the COVID whole thing there, but we've
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you're also giving to your local church. But if you are blessed by what we're doing here at
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relearn.org, we would love that. You could just go to relearn.org forward slash donate. Okay,
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so today's question is from Tyler in Laredo, Texas. And he says, Pastor Dale, for many years,
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I have believed that I chose God. But the more I read the Bible, the more I'm seeing that he
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chose me. I know at the root, this is a conversation between predestination and
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free will, but I would like to have a right understanding of my conversion. Can you help
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me with this? Hey, Tyler, thank you for your question. And let me begin by explaining
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why this question is actually so important. When we first encounter Christ, we view that
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experience through our own eyes. In other words, we see it one-dimensionally. We see it solely from
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the human perspective and not from God's perspective. Think of a dad running up to his son
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and excitingly saying, do you want to go to the park today? And his son screams, yeah.
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His son thinks that he just chose to go to the park. But every parent knows that the dad already
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made that decision for him before he asked the son. They were going to the park regardless, right?
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But again, the son only sees this interaction from his perspective. And in relationship to our
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conversion to Christ, by God's grace, we soon find out that God doesn't just leave us with
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our one-dimensional view, but he actually shares with us his perspective on our conversion by way
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the scriptures and after a person is saved and begins to read more and more of god's word they
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eventually bump into certain passages and begin to see that their conversion wasn't as one-dimensional
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as they originally thought and eventually they say wait wait wait a second uh did i did i choose god
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or or did god choose me and it sounds like that's what occurred here uh tyler in your life
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So I want to preface my explanation with three verses.
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Now, there are a lot more passages that we could discuss, but we have limited time, so
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So I'm going to read them off to you, back to back to back here.
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Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ
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with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before
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the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him in love he predestined
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us for adoption to himself as sons through jesus christ according to the purpose of his will to the
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praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved that's first one john
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john 6 44 jesus says no one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and i will raise
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him up on the last day. And John 10, 24 through 29. So the Jews gathered around Jesus and said to
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him, how long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered
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them, I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my father's name bear witness
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about me, but you do not believe because you are not among my sheep. My sheep hear my voice,
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and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish.
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My father who has given them to me is greater than all
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and no one is able to snatch them out of my father's hand.
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A man is drowning in an ocean and he's gonna die.
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Grab this life preserver and you're going to live.
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And the man in the water agrees, grabs the life preserver, which is Christ, or faith
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in Christ, and the evangelist pulls him into the boat.
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And metaphorically, this is what our conversion looks like from our one-dimensional perspective.
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But let me explain what evangelism looks like from the Bible's perspective.
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So first, let's look at Romans 3, 10 through 12, that tells us,
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None is righteous. No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God.
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All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one.
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And Ephesians 2, 1 through 3 adds to this by saying,
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And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked,
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following the course of this world, following the prince and the power of the air,
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the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.
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Okay, so the first major point is that nobody seeks God.
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We're spiritually dead in our trespasses and sins.
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The word picture there is of like a man face down, dead in his own vomit and feces.
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It says we're also following the course of this world.
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Imagine a river of dead corpses floating down toward a waterfall that empties into a volcano.
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That's what sin has done to mankind spiritually.
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Outside of Christ, we have no spiritual life left in us, no goodness left in us.
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And people go, well, we still do good things, right?
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Your good things to what somebody else is doing?
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Sure, it might be better than someone else is doing, considered morally speaking.
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But when you consider what you're doing and compare it to a holy God, a perfect and holy God, it's like comparing a grain of rice to the sun.
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The Bible doesn't teach that you and I were treading water in that ocean looking to be saved.
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The Bible teaches that you and I were dead on the bottom of the ocean floor already.
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and we were headed to hell and incapable of participating in our saving at all.
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So if we're totally dead, how did we get saved?
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Well, that's what we're here to talk about today.
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So according to the Bible, what happened was this.
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In the same way that Jesus resurrected Lazarus, without his permission, by the way,
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God spiritually resurrected you without your permission.
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And this is what we call the born again experience.
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And just like you had no choice in your physical birth, you had no choice in your spiritual birth.
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God, as he promised in the old covenant to those who were included in the new covenant,
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that he would take out your heart of stone and put into you a new heart of flesh where his law would be written upon it.
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It's the new creation that's spoken of in the scriptures.
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Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
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And like a baby cries out at their birth, you cried out to God at your second birth.
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but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father. Okay. You're
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crying out, God, Father. Okay. Now, when it says you received the spirit, imagine me having a
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football and putting it into your chest. It's not that you received it. Like I'm saying, yes,
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I'm receiving it. No, it's like I gave, God gave it to you, or I gave you the football and you
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received it. Um, you've received the spirit of adoption as sons, but whom, by whom we cry out,
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Abba father. And you cry out because your new heart that was given to you in your spiritual
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resurrection has immediately made you aware of your sin and genuine, um, made you aware of your
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sin and, and genuine repentance and saving faith begin to pour out of you. Uh, basically you're
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aware for the first time ever that you can't stand before God and be found righteous. You must
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instead trust in Christ alone to be your righteousness, to earn that righteous verdict
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on the day of judgment. And when this occurs, which all happens very quickly and simultaneously,
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and, you know, that's another theological discussion. But at this point, you're justified.
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And this is, you know, when we think about it from a forensic level or a legal matter,
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right, you're justified in the court case of being found righteous before God.
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And those whom he justified, he also glorified.
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This is called the golden chain in theology circles.
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When we hear the word called, think of Jesus in John 11 saying to Lazarus, he says, Lazarus,
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Now combine that statement of Jesus calling with Romans 10, 17 that says, so faith comes
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by hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.
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So when preachers preach the word of Christ, which is the gospel, it's kind of like your
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mouth as a preacher becomes the word of Christ, right?
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And his sheep, like Lazarus, come to him, right?
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This confirms, again, yeah, what I just read in John 10, 27.
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It says, my sheep, they hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
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Essentially, what I'm telling you here is this.
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You did not exercise saving faith and genuine repentance that led you to being born again.
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You were spiritually dead, incapable of seeking God.
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In fact, if you can exercise saving faith and genuine repentance without first being
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born again, why do you need to be born again, right?
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You just secured eternal life through faith, right?
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You can't exercise spiritual actions before being spiritually born, okay?
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genuine repentance and saving faith are spiritual actions, and they can't be carried out by
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spiritually dead people. And so what this leads us to is this, while we may have thought that we
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chose God, you know, in the same way that that child thought that he chose to go to the park,
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we didn't, right? God chose you before the foundations of the world, that's what it says
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in Ephesians. And because he chose you, he predestined you. Because he predestined you,
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he called you in that gospel hearing moment, and he called you to life. And in that moment,
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he gave you that new heart like he promised, with the ability to exercise saving faith and
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genuine repentance from that new source of life. And through this faith, he justified you by
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Christ's righteousness. And because you are his son or daughter, he will keep you saved forever.
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And if you've heard the song, he will hold you fast. It's a really beautiful song, really
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beautiful lyrics. But this is how Jesus in John 10, 28 can say, I give them eternal life and they
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will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. So think about that. Can you promise
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eternal life to somebody if you can lose your salvation? I don't think so. And he says right
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here, Jesus says, and they will never perish. Never. It's a powerful, powerful promise right
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there. So Tyler, to answer your question, I would say is no, you didn't choose Christ. Christ chose
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you. And this is the very definition of grace, is that you didn't choose it and you were saved
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anyways. If you chose it, then it's not grace. It's synergistic decision-making. I saw a really
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good opportunity. I chose it. You know, good business deal. Christ, you do some saving. I'll
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do some obeying, and we're going to do this thing, and we're going to run the race to the end.
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But that's not what happened. Grace is the fact that you had no chance of saving yourself,
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And this is how we can say salvation is of the Lord,
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And he's the author and the finisher of our faith,
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and we'll finish it in the day of Jesus Christ,
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as it says in Philippians. And so to him, be the glory forever and ever. Amen. You can say that
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to him, be the glory. Everything, your entire journey with Christ is all give the glory to
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Christ. Now, I know I'm about to close up right here, but I do want to put a quick asterisk here.
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Not everyone's salvation story might be this linear in terms of you can see those specific
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of clear moments. In fact, mine wasn't that linear. But regardless of variation and timing
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of all these elements, all these elements will occur according to scripture, and they will
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occur in a certain order. So don't worry if you're comparing your story to this and coming up
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confused. A really good resource, I'm going to leave you guys with two resources that you guys
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can actually find on the post page for this episode. And you can just go to relearn.org.
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This is episode 108 titled, Did I Choose God or Did God Choose Me? A really great book for you to
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read that is a biblical and scriptural breakdown of this gospel doctrine. It's by R.C. Sproul,
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and it's called Chosen by God. And we linked it up there. It's a blue book with, there's two
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versions of it. But the newer version is the blue book with a cross on the cover of it. And then a
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video by John Piper that's titled God chose you before you chose him. And he gives a short one or
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two minute message about that idea. Hopefully that was helpful for you guys. If you guys are
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a regular listener, would you guys consider leaving a review for the show? You don't even
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need to tap the stars or sorry, you don't even need to write anything. You just need to tap the
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stars. And that would be a blessing for us. It really does help the exposure of the show.
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And more people continue to hear about our ministry because of the great reviews, and they're so encouraging to us.
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My name is Dale Partridge, and we will see you guys next week.
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Thank you for listening to this episode of Real Christianity.
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If you're a regular listener to this show, would you prayerfully consider making a donation to support our ministry efforts?
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Again, that's relearn.org forward slash donate.
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And for those looking to explore the idea of joining or planting a church in your home,
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you can download our free PDF ebook titled The Basics of Biblical House Church by visiting relearn.org forward slash house.
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Lastly, do you have a theological question you would like answered on the show?
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Submit your question at relearn.org forward slash question.
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Thanks for joining us on this episode of Real Christianity.